Dog Days
by Bytes
Summary: Hiei didn't think insulting that wolf demon would get him into this much trouble, but now his days are going to the dogs... quite literally. Can the fire apparition find his friends before the vengeful wolf demon exacts irrevocable payback? HieiOC
1. Chapter 1: The Pursuit

Dog Days

By SamBytes

Chapter 01: The Pursuit

* * *

"Don't let him get away!" Yusuke screamed, tearing into the darkness after the white wolf. Kurama and Kuwabara sprinted after him while Hiei jumped from tree branch to tree branch above them all. The forest loomed over, a shadowed and unfathomable intelligence that watched them with unseen eyes.

The wolf they chased was not unlike Kurama before he had become part human—a shape-shifter, the wolf could take his humanoid and lupine forms at will, making him an unpredictable and crafty fighter. Beautiful to behold and genius in his reasoning, the wolf had sought and found entrance into the Human World despite being denied a proper permit. Since Enki had become the ruler of the Demon World, demons had been allowed to come and go freely between the worlds so long as they acquired a permit and a spirit tracker to deter them from massacring the ignorant humans.

The wolf, however, was a voracious man-eater. He had been denied a permit for obvious reasons, and had summarily crossed the border between the words illegally.

The wolf led the four—whom Koenma had called upon as a favor, of sorts, since the lot of them had retired from true Spirit Detective work after being recruited by the rulers of the Demon World, or, in Kuwabara's case, after entering college—through a dense forest on the outskirts of Yusuke's and Kuwabara's city, dodging between tree trunks and jumping over fallen logs on the legs of his wolf form. They could hardly keep up; only the occasional flit of the wolf's white fur between the trees kept them on the right path. The ex-detectives could hardly see each other as they ran in the moonlight: Kurama's otherwise flaming hair had turned deep gray in the gloom, and Hiei in his customary black was nigh invisible but for the flash of his drawn sword when a moonbeam hit it on scarce occasion.

"Come and fight me, you coward!" Yusuke roared, stumbling over a tree root. His wished, oddly enough, was granted, because a few seconds later he and his friends all stumbled into a large clearing. The wolf sat crouched in the center of the space, and as soon as Yusuke entered the pool of moonlight illuminating the clearing the wolf attacked, leaping toward Yusuke's throat with bared teeth.

The ex-detective dodged, of course, but only barely—his shoulder came away with a large gash that immediately began to bleed. As Yusuke staggered backward, Kurama and Kuwabara stepped out of his shadow and launched separate attacks at the wolf: Kuwabara with a sword-strike and Kurama with a lash from his rose whip. The wolf skittered backward and managed to evade both strikes; he tried to run away from the trio and toward the other side of the clearing, but Hiei blocked his path with a bared sword.

"We have you surrounded," Hiei said, red eyes glittering in the moonlight. "Come quietly and we might not hurt you... not very much, anyway."

The wolf sank low to the ground. Paws the size of dinner plates decorated with claws like a lion's scored the earth, and with a glint of ice-blue eyes the beast threw back its head and howled at the moon. White light coalesced around its pale fur, and with a crack of displaced bone the wolf began to take on its humanoid appearance. Fur fell from its body in a snowy flurry; bones compacted and lengthened; skin and blood and muscle rearranged, the spectacle sickeningly graphic. When the light faded, a naked man with pale skin sat crouched in the middle of a pile of discarded fur. Claws tipped his abnormally long fingers and toes; his beautiful lips hid a bristling forest of ivory fangs; ears tapered to delicate points between strands of snow-white hair that fell to the man's knees. The eyes were the worst, however: as blue as a gas-flame, as cold as a glacier, as remote as a distant mountain, they chilled the heart as effectively as any blizzard.

"You tire me, boy," the man spat in a voice of velvet and silk and hail. "All of you do. Let me pass. Enough of this petty fighting."

"Not likely," Hiei said, and leaped forward. His sword sliced through the air where the wolf's head had once been, but somehow the wolf managed to lower his head just enough to avoid the swing. He swept out a foot and knocked Hiei's feet out from under him, then catapulted off the ground to land high above his pursuers on a tree branch at the clearing's edge.

Hiei righted himself with all the dignity he could muster, which was not much considering the circumstances. "Get down here, dog!" he snarled. "Even dogs fight face to face!"

A look of thunder and lightning passed across the wolf's face. "'Dog'?" he repeated. "You, a half-breed mutt that reeks of mixed race, dare to call me, a pure and noble wolf, a mere 'dog'?"

Hiei twitched at that, grip on the sword tightening. "Don't tempt me, dog!" he growled. "I'm supposed to bring you back to Koenma alive."

"Cut the name-calling, guys. We can start talking about each others mamas in the locker room after the game," Yusuke said, moving to the fire apparition's side. His shoulder had stopped bleeding but the wound pained Yusuke enough to force him to favor that arm. "I don't care how pure your breeding is. Get down here and fight," he added for the wolf's benefit.

The wolf smiled, but the expression did nothing to lighten his icy blue eyes. "I think not," he said, eyes fixed on Hiei, and he spread his hands before him. Light began to gather in spheres around his fingertips; tinged the color of a blue glacier, the light pulsed and throbbed like a living being.

"Be wary," said Kurama, joining his comrades. Kuwabara trailed at his heels. "I do not know what he attempts with this spell of his."

"Whatever it is, it can't be good," Kuwabara muttered, looking at the light. He readied his Spirit Sword.

Hiei laughed derisively. "Scared of such a paltry amount of energy, Kuwabara? That dog couldn't kill a fly with a spell that weak!"

"I'll silence that tongue of yours for good, mongrel," the wolf growled, the light on his fingers brightening into ten miniature suns. "We'll see who the 'dog' is now!" Then the light shot toward the ex-detectives in a wave of cold and frost, streaking through the moonlight like arctic fireflies.

They all dodged the light, of course: Kuwabara merely fell on his face, but Yusuke moved to the left, Kurama moved to the right, and Hiei moved backward until he was directly opposite the wolf poised on the tree limb.

However, Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara needn't have expended the effort. The light was clearly meant for Hiei.

It zoomed over Kuwabara's head and straight at the fire apparition; Hiei's eyes opened so wide they looked black in the moonlight. He dodged the light as it clouded around him, but it was too quick and there were too many spheres to avoid for long. They struck his skin and stuck there, covering him in dalmatian spots of electric white-blue energy. One sphere collided with his cheek; another with his arm; another with his thigh. Once they had settled down, they began to spread like a disease, creeping over his body in a wave. His face was the last thing to be covered. Around him, his comrades stared with open, horrified eyes.

Hiei fell to his knees, hugging his body with numb arms. "Don't worry about me—get that dog!" he shouted, voice grinding like falling rocks. His comrades, wanting to help him but trusting his judgment, tore their gazes away from the fire apparition and closed in on the wolf. The wolf laughed a laugh of icicles falling on glass and ran headlong into the woods.

Hiei, strangling a pained scream before it could rent the open air, stumbled into the forest, swiping at the cold spots on his body in an effort to get them off. They burned like frostbite, and as he disappeared from sight the rest of the ex-detectives followed the wolf deep into the opposite side of the forest.

* * *

Well, this story is going to get weird, fast. But I hope you like it just the same. I'm kind of speed-writing in order to get this plot-bunny off my chest, but I'm enjoying it and that's what matters. As of now, I have six chapters done. More to come depending on my feedback.

Oh, and the title is supposed to be centered, but it won't stay that way. No idea why.

Sam Bytes


	2. Chapter 2: Afraid This Time

Dog Days

By Sam Bytes

Chapter 02: Afraid This Time

* * *

His body went cold all over, first. Numb and shaking, unable to feel his own body wrapped around him, Hiei stumbled through the forest like a man drunk on ice-water and whiskey. How he hated the iciness, the cold, the chill—it was not the friendly chill of dancing snow, which the Koorime side of him could take, but the chill of death and disease that stood anathema to life itself. But then the cold gave way to pain more intense than anything he had ever experienced, and he wished for the cold again to numb his tortured body. His screams reverberated across the forest, sending flocks of birds flying in fear, but the pain never lessened. It was not something he could accustom himself to, for every breath he took sent a new wave of agony cascading down his body.

What seemed an eternity later, he curled up at the base of a tree and slept. The pain did not follow him into unconsciousness, and neither did the voices calling his name.

* * *

Hiei woke up aching, and so he did what he always did when he ached: he walked. He walked before he had even come awake, stepping across the forest floor in a pain-maddened haze of _I need to move_. He came across a highway soon enough and followed it to the outskirts of the city; the suburbs, a quiet residential street, full of warm houses and sleeping humans.

_I need to find Yusuke, _he thought, but his legs had begun to wobble at that point. It was nighttime, but he did not know what specific time it was, and he had no way to find out where his friends were. Sleep—real sleep, not the counterfeit unconsciousness of his earlier coma—dragged down the corners of his eyes, and with a sigh he looked around him and saw a row of thick bushes lining the front of one of the bigger houses. He would have preferred a tree, but given the state of his body he felt that getting up into one would prove too difficult to manage. It took a little maneuvering to get underneath the shrubbery, but the branches hollowed out nicely around the roots. Hiei curled in on himself, sighed, and fell deeply into true, healing sleep.

* * *

He awoke for a second time in much different circumstances: someone was disturbing his bushes. It took a minute for him to remember where he was and how he had gotten there, but when he did he remembered that it had probably not been the best idea to sleep under the bushes on a human's property (they were obscenely territorial when it came to their homes, these humans). He steeled himself for anger and felt confused when he realized that the person disturbing him was speaking in soft, hushed, and friendly tones.

"Shhh, it's OK, boy," they were saying. "No one's gonna hurt you. Come out from there, OK? I'll give you something to eat."

Hiei wanted to growl something along the lines of "Are you talking to me the way you talk to children on purpose, or are you just stupid?", but the only sound to come from his throat was a _real_ growl—a throaty, voice-box-vibrating, animalistic _growl_. Appalled, he tried to put a hand to his throat, only to realize that his hand wouldn't quite... reach?

"It's OK, boy," the voice said. "It's OK, really, I won't hurt you... good doggie."

The word 'doggie' struck Hiei like a physical blow; the air rushed out of his lungs in a whoosh, and his legs—all four of them—weakened. He plopped down on his belly, panting for air in an all-too-canine-like way, and craned his head backward over his too-long neck to look at his body. Black fur glistened, and a long black plume—was that a _tail_?—lay still on the dirt of the flowerbed. He had paws, he had a tail, he had fur—what the hell was going on, here?!

"Are you OK in there?" the voice asked. "Hello? Doggie?"

Hiei, at that point, did a supremely un-Hiei-like thing. His eyes rolled back in his head and he keeled over, blacking out in a cocktail of shock, exhaustion, and disbelief.

_That wolf turned me into a damn _dog_! _was his final thought before the blackness, once again, took him prisoner.

* * *

"Where the hell could he have gone?" Yusuke muttered, thrashing his way through brush and around trees. His arms were covered in a fine network of thin scratches courtesy of the forest's rough foliage. "HIEI! FOLLOW THE SOUND OF MY VOICE! STAY AWAY FROM THE LIGHT!"

"He can't have gone far, given the state he was in," Kurama said, using a bit of his energy to control the plants and move them neatly out of his way.

Kuwabara hacked away at the plants with his Spirit Sword. "Too bad the wolf guy got away. Hiei deserves to take a swing or two at 'im."

"I do believe you just defended Hiei," Kurama observed, and Kuwabara took a particularly vicious swing at the bushes clawing his pant-leg into shreds before snapping: "The shrimp got what was coming to 'im, insulting the wolf like that. He should've figured a guy as creepy as that could pack a mean punch!"

"HIEI!" Yusuke bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth. "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, YOU UGLY LITTLE JERK?!"

They received no answer.

"What's strange is his Spirit Energy," Kurama said as he continued to scan the ground for a sign of Hiei's passage. They had been able to track him for a while, but then his trail went cold. "It's like his Spirit Energy just vanished. If he'd died—" (the party went quiet for a minute) "—if he had died, Botan would have contacted us at once. So he's alive, but... missing. Which seems impossible, doesn't it?"

"No one can hide their Spirit Energy this well," Kuwabara said by way of agreement. "It's like that time you got reverted to a toddler during the Dark tournament, Kurama—just _poof_, and no more Kurama! Only, this time it's Hiei ho's gone."

"HIEI!" Yusuke screamed again. "GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR AND FIND US, OK? WE HAVE TO GO FIND THAT WOLF GUY AND KICK HIS SORRY ASS FOR YOU!" He turned to his friends, and, brown eyes as hard as malachite, he said: "Look, we're never going to find him in the dark like this. If Hiei's alive he'll come to us no matter what, so we should just let him be until he sorts this out on his own. I trust him. If he said he'd be fine, then he'll be fine."

After a moment of hesitation and a shared look, Kuwabara and Kurama nodded.

"As I recall, looking for Hiei never yielded much fruit if he did not want to be found," Kurama reasoned. "He's on his own, and I know he'll be fine."

"He's a resilient little shrimp," Kuwabara muttered.

"That's the spirit," Yusuke said, grinning. "Now let's go find that wolf and give 'em one for Hiei!"

They went back the way they had come, back to the point where Hiei's trail had disappeared, back to the place where hope had been lost in the dark wood. They had been looking for a demon and only a demon, and thus they did not notice the small black dog lying quietly beneath a nearby tree.

* * *

_So I decided to do that cliché bit where I name each chapter for a song, album, or musical artist. So, this chapter is "Afraid This Time" by Celldweller. Great music. Check it out. Last chapter was a take on "The Pursuit Begins When This Portrayal of Life Ends," an Evans Blue album._


	3. Chapter 3: Animal I Have Become

Dog Days

By Sam Bytes

Chapter 03: Animal I Have Become

* * *

He was a pretty dog, Mackenzie admitted to herself as she carried him inside. Very pretty. Blue-black fur, a body more like a wolf's than a dog's, just barely small enough for her to carry in her arms... yes, a pretty dog indeed with the white crest on his forehead and ears. She had thought, the first moment she saw him, that he must be an old dog to have so much white on his face, but his muzzle was sleek and a peek under his eyelids showed no sign of cataract. So, a young dog, then.

She placed the dog—he had no collar and no name, unfortunately for his owner—in the laundry room atop a pile of beach towels and scraps of cloth which she had placed in a large cardboard box.

"I'll get you a better bed soon, I promise," she murmured to the dog. She picked up one of the moth-eaten towels and covered the dog with it, smoothing the white streaks on his head gently with her hand. "Pretty boy," she cooed at him, then placed a hand over his belly. His breathing felt normal to her, but Mackenzie was no veterinarian. "I'll look around town for lost dog posters tomorrow and see if I can find your owner. Take you to the vet, too, and maybe put up a few posters of my own." Although he had a few leaves clinging to him, his fur was shiny and he was obviously well-fed; he was no stray, that much was clear.

Standing, Mackenzie walked out of the laundry room and into the kitchen. Watery morning sunshine streamed in the window above the sink; her deep blue wallpaper and gray granite counter tops seemed to glow in the light. The coffee had finished brewing during her excursion out of doors, so she poured herself a cup and mulled over it at the kitchen table.

She had seen the dog's tail peeking out from under the bushes like a long snake on her way to get the morning paper. Her reaction had been immediate—make a bed, take leftover grilled chicken from the night before and chop it up into little pieces, coax the dog inside and check the collar for contact information. Only, the dog didn't seem to notice the food (which she had left beside his sleeping form in the laundry room), he hadn't been coaxable (if that was even a word), and his owner's name was sadly missing.

The phone rang, then, and Mackenzie jumped. Laughing to herself, she found the black cordless phone sitting serenely in its cradle next to the sink. She flicked the 'talk' button. "Hello?"

"Hey, Mack. It's Marie."

"Hi, Marie. You're calling early."

"Just checking to see if you made any headway on the next book."

Mackenzie's heart leaped into her throat. "I've been kind of busy lately, but I'll let you know when I get it done."

Marie sighed. "Listen, as your agent I need to be honest with you: the publisher isn't going to keep paying you rights if you don't come up with new material. This is your job, OK? I know you miss Shiro, but..."

Mackenzie took great pains not to listen to whatever Marie chose to say next. She hated it when people brought up Shiro, not yet, not so soon after... after...

'"I found a dog," Mackenzie said suddenly, and Marie stopped talking.

"I thought you said you weren't getting a dog for a while," Marie said, suspicion coloring her voice.

"He isn't mine. I found him sleeping in my bushes this morning. I'm going to try to find his owner if I can, but he doesn't have a collar."

"Then how do you know he isn't a stray?"

"I didn't see any fleas on him, he's not starved, his coat looks brushed... He's a really pretty dog, Marie, you should come see him sometime."

Marie laughed. "Maybe I will. And hey, maybe this is exactly what you need. Make a new book out of this and stuff."

Mackenzie's pulse quickened, and she glanced at the laundry room's closed door. "Maybe I will," she said, and bid Marie goodbye.

* * *

_This waking up business, _Hiei thought, _is getting old_. He rose and shook himself, yawning, and attempted to run his hand through his hair.

Or, rather, his fur.

Everything flooded into him, then, and with a low growl he surveyed his body just to make sure the night before hadn't been some strange dream. No such luck, of course, but it never hurt to try.

He looked around him for a moment, taking in his surroundings. Two large white machines, one of which was humming contentedly; two laundry baskets, one of which was much neater than the other; a coat rack with only one brown coat on it; an umbrella stand with two umbrellas, one black and one red; a narrow table with a small human contraption on it—he was in some sort of chore-related room, he imagined. What did Genkai call her similar room? A laundry room? Yes, that was it, which explained the piles of folded and unfolded laundry in their respective baskets. Speaking of which...

He realized he was sitting in a box filled with towels and cloth scraps. _Did the human do this for me?_ he thought, pawing gently at the cloth. _How... kind. _

A scent wafted past him, then, and his mouth watered embarrassingly, but he had never smelled anything that delicious and aromatic before in his life and he _wanted_ it, oh yes...

The plateful of chicken vanished in a few bites, and when it disappeared Hiei's head cleared. _Did I really get that excited over some tasteless chicken?_ he thought, licking his lips. _I knew dogs were simple, but this is ridiculous. _

Standing up, he walked around the room a few times to get his bearings. It took him a while to figure out how to coordinate his long, low body, but soon he was able to trot from one end of the room to the other without tripping over himself. The ability to run for his life now within his skill set, Hiei began to look for a way out.

There were two doors into the room and only one window set above the two white machines. One of the doors was on the same wall as the window, and by sniffing the base of the door he caught a whiff of fresh air and plant life. But the door would not relent to his pawing, and he was forced to see to the other door. He sniffed at the base carefully—he could get used to his new nose; it made finding things so simple—and detected nothing but the smell of an acrid substance he assumed was some form of human cleaning product. He pawed at the door and was surprised when it actually opened. For a moment he thought that he had done it himself, but at the sight of a pair of frilly pink house slippers he skittered backward and growled on pure reflex.

The human backed up, hands raised. "Easy, boy," she said. Hiei recognized her as the owner of the kind voice from the bush incident and let his hackles relax a few degrees. "I heard you trying to get out, so I opened the door. It's OK, really."

Hiei stopped growling.

"I have something for you," the human said. The small kitchen behind her was simple: a U-shaped set of counters with a large table in the middle of the U; a sink with a window above it; cabinets on the walls above the counters, a door set in the curve of the U. The laundry room was on the open end of the U. The human reached behind her and picked something up off of the table which she then placed on the floor.

Food. Hiei could smell it. His animal instincts kicked in, and the hunger gnawing at his belly drove him forward as the human backed away to sit down on the other side of the table. Hiei ate with gusto, trying to be delicate with his new mouth. He failed miserably. She had provided him with beef, this time, and he ate every scrap.

And the whole time, the human spoke.

"I'm Mackenzie," she said. "People call me Mack. I like dogs. I thought you might like a little company. When I go shopping tomorrow, I'm going to look and see if any 'lost dog' posters have been put up, so maybe you'll be back home before you know it. If I don't see any, I'm going to put up a few 'found dog' sheets of my own. You won't have to stay here for long, but I hope we can be friends until you go. It was really stupid of your owner not to put an ID on you—imagine if you had gotten hurt."

Hiei—having finished his food—sat stiffly by the now-clean plate, unsure of what to do. The human prattled on until she noticed him, then she smiled his way without showing any of her teeth. Hiei appreciated the gesture; animals often mistook toothy grins for signs of aggression, and given his confused mental state he was not sure how he would react to anything other than her carefully bland smile.

"Well, you've growled at me twice now, but you're not too aggressive otherwise, so..." She put out her hand, leaned over, and patted the leg of her chair a few times. "I guess an experiment can't hurt. C'mere, boy!"

Hiei tried his best to glare at her, but he did not yet know how to make expressions on his dog-face. After a few moments of soft and futile calling, she sighed and sat up straight. "Maybe you_ are _a stray," she said. "Just a well-fed one. You certainly are pretty enough to get some charity."

Hiei, miffed at the thought of being called _pretty_ (being known as a beauty was not one of his aspirations), let out a strangled bark.

The woman—Mackenzie, had she called herself?—leaned forward and held out her hand. "Oh, so you_ can_ talk," she said. "Well then, good sir, may I please have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?"

Hiei hesitated until he could see defeat in Mackenzie's eyes, and then he moved forward. This is on _my_ terms, he wanted to show her. He stretched out his nose until it barely brushed her fingertips, then waited as she slowly—so slowly—moved her hand and stroked his ears. The contact lasted for a brief moment that stretched into eternity, and then she pulled back her hand.

"Well, then," she said softly. " It's nice to meet you."

* * *

_Three Days Grace provided the title for this chapter._


	4. Chapter 4: Daylight

Dog Days

By Sam Bytes

Chapter 04: Daylight  


* * *

Hiei spent the night in the laundry room, curled up on his comfortable bed of towels. He had gone there willingly; Mackenzie had not had to force him back into the small room. He was still tired from the days before, still reeling from the shock of his new body, and he had slept like the dead. But then the sun had leaked in the uncurtained window, and he woke up restless. He heard her moving about the kitchen early that morning, but she had not checked on him; perhaps she thought he was still sleeping as he made no noise lying as still as he did on his bed. It was only after she left that he stood up and trotted around the room to keep from getting too bored, and when he heard the unmistakable sound of a door slamming in the house an hour or so later he bolted toward the door in excitement. Mackenzie opened it to the sight of Hiei shifting his weight from foot to foot, and the minute the door cracked open he forced himself out into the kitchen.

"Well good morning to you, too," she said with a laugh.

He trotted around the room, sniffing cabinets and the table legs as Mackenzie checked out the laundry room for purposes of her own.

"Do you need to go outside?" she asked. "Here, I'll open the door."

Hiei cocked his head to one side. The thought of the outdoors appealed to him, but why did she ask in such an apprehensive tone? Still, he did not complain as he followed her out of the laundry room's outside door and into a large yard. He ran around it, nose to the ground, exploring the small brick patio and mowed grass. The yard was bordered on one side by the house, on another by a building that was presumably a garage, and on the other two by tall wooden fencing.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, so do your business while I'm gone, OK?" she said. The door to the laundry room shut behind her, and for a long moment Hiei felt puzzled by her words. 'Do your business?' What in the world did she mean by—

It hit him, then, and if his face had not been covered in fur, he probably would have turned bright red. It was obvious. Dogs 'did their business' outside.

Thanking fate that Mackenzie had chosen to leave him be and not remain an audience, Hiei found the most secluded part of the yard to 'do his business' in, and he felt more humiliated than he ever had before in his life as he slunk back to the laundry room. _I will kill that damn wolf for this,_ he thought repeatedly as he paced back and forth by the door. _I_ _will kill him_.

He managed to get a good look at the back of the house while he waited to be let indoors. He realized that the house had a second story; a large circular window looked in on a dark room high above his head, but Hiei was too low to see into it. On the back of the first story, there were only two windows: the one into the laundry room and one other, larger window in a room Hiei had not yet seen. As he looked at the high window he thought he saw movement within, but he could not be sure if it was Mackenzie or merely a reflection of one of the few tall trees scattered around the back yard. A light wind stirred their leaves and ruffled Hiei's fur.

It did not take Mackenzie long to reappear from wherever she had been. "Well, it appears you're housebroken," she remarked as she let Hiei inside. "You're definitely not a stray—hey, what's that look for?"

Hiei had, unintentionally, started hanging his head when Mackenzie commented on him being "housebroken." She just had to rub it in, didn't she?

"Weirdo," she said affectionately, and she reached down to touch his head as he moved past her into the laundry room. "Say, I need your help with something. Come with me."

The pair went through the kitchen and then out of it into a large room—the dining room, outfitted with a large wooden table polished to a lustrous glow. Floor-to-ceiling windows let mid-morning sunlight stream in, and the effect was a homey sort of beauty, but the dining room was not their destination. She led Hiei out of the dining room and into another room he had never seen before: a living room that contained three red couches arranged in a semi-circle around a large glass coffee table and a television set. Small tables and antique lamps lent a comfortable air to the large room, and the place was cozy despite its size. A set of scarlet-carpeted stairs led to a second story, and Mackenzie started up them without much pause.

Hiei, however, took an interest in the big room. Nose to the ground, he began to sniff at the wooden floors and the hems of the sofas. A scent had caught his attention—a familiar scent, but he could not place it. It lingered the most heavily on the center couch, above which was a large bay window looking out on the back yard—the one he had seen earlier, he realized.

"Hey, what are you up to?" Mackenzie said, standing on the bottom step. "I need you to come upstairs with me."

But Hiei was insatiable. He knew the smell was familiar—he knew it! Still, he would have to ponder it later, because Mackenzie was looking impatient. He took one last whiff of the elusive scent and trotted over to the stairs. Mackenzie patted his head briefly before taking the stairs two at a time and into a long hallway. Doors lined the hallway, but Mackenzie bypassed them all for the door at the hall's far end. It creaked open beneath her touch, and Hiei walked inside.

The circular window he had seen from the yard stood across from him. Right in front of it sat a desk and a chair, both very tall and both made of white wood. Cups built into the desk held pens and pencils and rulers; wire drawers underneath the desk top held jars of what appeared to be paint and ink. The desktop itself was tilted so the user could work at it without having to hunch forward. A bar along the bottom held papers in place, although the desk was empty and the bar was therefore not in use. Two filing cabinets stood on either side of the window, and a large desk of the typical office variety sat like a beached wooden whale on the room's far right. Stacks of papers sat precariously on the top of the desk, threatening to toddle over with the slightest touch. But the thing that drew Hiei's eye were the pictures—pictures of places, of animals, of people, of objects; from magazine clippings to paintings to sketches, everything that could have been there was there. They draped almost every square inch of the room's walls, a kaleidoscope of color and form dizzying to behold.

"This is my studio," Mackenzie said, moving toward the desk on the right wall. From a drawer behind it she removed a large black object—a camera, Hiei knew; Botan had gone through a phase where she had carried one around with her all of the time, taking photos indiscriminately. Hiei had tried to stay out of sight as much as possible, but despite his best efforts the Shinigami had managed to take a few of him. As a result, Hiei backed away when he saw the camera, retreating out into the hallway.

"Oh, come on," Mackenzie griped. "I need a picture for the posters, you dummy. Just one is OK, so get your butt in here."

_Hiei, trying not to look cowed,_ slunk over to Mackenzie. _That's right, he thought, the posters. Yusuke will see them—surely he'll recognize me. The sooner I play along, the sooner I can get out of this stupid body._

Mackenzie positioned Hiei up against one of the picture-covered walls, but then she frowned and began t move the white desk out from in front of the window. When Hiei shot her a look of _What in the world are you doing, woman?_, she shook her finger at him and said: "Get over here; the light's better."

Hiei sat obediently in front of the window, and Mackenzie remarked: "You're awfully well-trained."

Hiei tried not to fidget. He hadn't thought about staying as dumb as the average dog. What would happen if Mackenzie started to get suspicious?

_But what of?_ he realized. _It's not like she knows about demons. To her, all I will appear to be is a very well-trained animal. _

Mackenzie shook her head, knelt in front of Hiei, and said: "Eh, whatever. Now try to look cute." She raised the camera to her eye.

Hiei—as his human 'owner' snapped a few pictures—studied her. She was a small, trim woman with pale skin and blonde hair as fine as corn silk. Her hazel eyes glittered in the sun as she smiled at him from around the camera; pink lips and a snub nose made her resemble something cherubic and innocent. She was perhaps a trifle too thin for Hiei's taste, and her jean-clad legs looked knock-kneed beneath the fabric. _Does the woman not eat or sleep? _he thought as he noticed the bags beneath her eyes. She did not look very healthy.

"Well, that's that," Mackenzie said, rising to her feet with a grunt. Hiei stood up from where he had been sitting and shook himself. "You wanna hang out in here, boy? I've got a little work to do."

Hiei's dog-instincts immediately kicked in: plopping down onto his belly in the pool of mid-morning sun, he stretched out like a long black puddle and settled in for a nap.

Mackenzie chuckled to herself as she watched the dog sleep. _I hope his family comes for him,_ she thought as she sat behind the large desk. She booted up the sleek silver laptop on the desktop and plugged in her camera's memory card. _He's so cute,_ she thought, burning the photographs to a disk so she could take them to the copy store and have them turned into posters.

She took a moment to study the pictures. The dog, in the first picture, had been staring off into the space above her head, eyes distant and untouchable. Despite the far-ff expression, his narrow face and large eyes—_huge eyes, _Mackenzie corrected herself—gave him the look of the eternal puppy, if not, of course, for the white crest that looked almost like a large jagged semi-circle of a unibrow on his forehead.

The next few pictures looked similar, but the fourth or fifth shot showed the dog looking straight at the camera. The expression was serious; the stance, regal.

"Pretty dog," Mackenzie murmured, and then felt her jaw drop as she saw the next picture. His eyes had softened slightly, and the light from the window had caught them in just the right way, making them sparkle—

"Red," Mackenzie whispered. "Wow. Weird." She had taken pictures of dogs before—_too many pictures, _she thought, heart sinking, but before she could dive into ennui she tore her thoughts off of that path—and had never seen red eye-shine on a dog. Yellow, gold, white—but red? Was that even possible?

The picture, despite the disturbing red effect, was a beautiful one. His fur glistened; you could see the wonderful structure of his face. She cleaned out some of the pervasive red shine in Photoshop and decided to use that picture for the poster. His expression—as much as she could tell on a dog, anyway—had softened, and his jawline was more relaxed.

"Bingo." She glanced over at the sleeping dog, and smiled. But then the smile faded, and she opened her desk's top drawer. In it lay a picture frame, and in the picture...

"Miss you, Shiro," she said, eyes on the frame, "but I think you will be happy to know I am helping someone, now."

She glanced at her sleeping house-guest, at the way the light played over his midnight fur.

"And he's helping me too," she said. "Not that he even knows it."

Placing the frame on the desk between stacks of her piled papers, Mackenzie opened another drawer and pulled out a few sheets of plain white paper and a pencil. Then, eyes on her sleeping friend, she began to create.


	5. Chapter 5: Naive

Dog Days

Chapter 05:

"Naive"

* * *

"Look at this, boy!" Mackenzie said early one morning, dropping to her knees on the kitchen floor. "Do you like it?"

Hiei, in the laundry room, rose from his bed and trotted over for a closer look. She held a poster before her, a picture of a black dog emblazoned in the middle. Words above and below him proclaimed "Found Dog! Call--" and then a contact number.

"Well, boy?" she asked again. "Do you like it? I think I got your good side!"

Hiei barked once, and then he nuzzled her hand.

It had been two days since Mackenzie had taken his picture. Since then, Hiei had been dividing his time between the running in the yard and napping in Mackenzie's study. While he did not enjoy his life as a dog, per say, he was not adverse to the constant attention Mackenzie showered on him, and he had been enduring his dog days quietly.

"Well, the next step is to put them around the neighborhood," Mackenzie said, rising to her feet. "Want to come with me?"

Hiei barked again. He had not been off of Mackenzie's property since he had wandered onto it, and the sudden thought of a bit of freedom made him jump up in excitement.

"This'll be a blast," Mackenzie said, rising to her feet. She jogged into the laundry room and opened the set of cupboards that hung on the wall, and from it she pulled two objects that Hiei could not immediately place. When he did realize what they were, however, he backed away and scooted under the kitchen table.

"Oh, come on," Mackenzie chided, "you're such a scaredy cat, being afraid of a little old leash."

_I am not an animal no matter how doggish I may look! _Hiei wanted to snarl, but his lack of speaking ability left him only with a growl.

"Now for heavens sake! I'd been putting off walking you because I didn't know how you'd react to a collar, but this is just silly." Mackenzie dropped to all fours and crawled toward the table. She stopped a few feet away and spoke in a soft, soothing voice. "Look, buddy, I don't know what your previous owners did to you, but I won't hurt you, I promise. You have nothing to be afraid of."

_Afraid?_ Hiei's ears twitched at the word. _I am not afraid. I am merely mortified at being paraded about like a... like a show dog! To collar me would be to demean me as a man._

Her voice showed a hint more frustration, next. "And besides, if you don't wear the leash, I could get in trouble. This neighborhood has a strict leash law when it comes to dogs."

Her words galled him. _Demean me as a 'man'? _he thought again, but this time the thought was colored by resignation. _How can I be demeaned as a man when I am just a dog? _Slowly, he went to her and allowed her to slip the collar around his neck. Royal blue, a tag jingled off of it merrily, but the collar itself was incredibly loose on his neck, and for that he was grateful.

As he became acclimated to his new adornment, Hiei realized that a certain scent—a familiar one—clung faintly to the material of the collar. _The scent from the living room,_ he deduced after a moment of recollection. _But whose scent is it?_

"Sorry it doesn't fit," Mackenzie apologized, ruffling Hiei's ears. "It belonged to..." She stopped talking and looked away, and a faint blush rose on her cheeks. However, it was not the blush of first love or a blush of embarrassment, but rather the blush of an unpleasant memory recalled and of the promise of welling tears. "Well, it belonged to a bigger dog than you."

_Another dog, _he thought to himself. _There was another dog here._

Mackenzie fingered the collar around his neck. "I'll get you a new one, I guess," she whispered, and her voice cracked on the last syllable.

_Don't you dare cry, _Hiei wanted to tell her. _I don't even know what's wrong or what this other __dog did to you, but I do know that it's not worth seeing you cry over._ But, being unable to say those things, he just nuzzled her knee and whined softly, trying to sound and act sympathetic as much as he could with his new features.

Mackenzie caressed his head and smiled at him, and the water in her eyes receded. "Good dog," she said, and clipped on Hiei's leash.

The walk was a brisk one: Hiei, excited now that the shock of the collar had worn off, ran all over the road and across lawns, nose to the ground as he explored. Mackenzie stopped him from time to time so she could tape a poster to the occasional light pole, but otherwise Hiei was allowed to roam as he pleased. They turned back to the house only when the posters ran out, and on the return trip they took a different, longer route so Hiei could have more of a walk. It felt good to stretch his muscles, to feel the pavement under his feet and the wind in his fur. There was a certain freedom of movement in his four legs that felt sinfully good.

_If communication weren't so difficult and the situation not so grim,_ he found himself thinking,_ I might actually enjoy this body._

When they returned home, Mackenzie took off his collar and the leash and hung then on a peg next to the laundry room door. "I have a little work to do, buddy," she said. "Want to hang out with me upstairs?"

Hiei barked and bolted for the stairs, energized from the walk and feeling excited at the prospect of a nap. He always napped while Mackenzie worked—not that he really knew what she did, however. He didn't think about it much.

"Did your owner teach you the word 'stair?'" Mackenzie yelled after him as she followed at a slower pace, and Hiei stopped dead in his tracks midway up the flight of the aforementioned steps.

_Too smart for my own good,_ he thought. _Think like a dog, Hiei. _He waited for Mackenzie to catch up to him before continuing up, and he made sure to let her lead the way so it did not look like he remembered where she liked to work.

They settled in their respective places: Hiei in the pool of sunlight underneath the tall white desk, and Mackenzie behind her large wooden desk. Not too soon after that, however, Mackenzie's cell phone rang in her pocket.

"Hey, Marie!" she said as she answered, seeing the caller ID. Hiei raised his head from where he had kept it pillowed on his paws and watched with interest as Mackenzie's eyes went wide. "S-sure," she stammered. "And yeah, the pages are done... only a few, but..." She heaved a heavy sigh. "All right, then, see you in a few."

It took her a moment to set the phone down, but when she did it was with hands that shook from nervousness. "Holy crap!" she shrieked as she frantically pawed through the many pages of paper on her desk. She picked up about ten brightly colored sheets of thick paper and ten more covered in type. "My editor-slash-agent lady is coming by and I am NOT prepared!" After organizing the twenty pages in whatever order pleased her, she ran her hands through her blonde hair, leaving the strands messier than before, and she stood up. She paced across the room twice, button nose wrinkled in a way Hiei would have found somewhat cute had Mackenzie not looked so stressed. "I look a fright, I'll bet, and I'm not prepared, and—" She shot Hiei a glance. "Well, at least _you're_ cute. That oughta soften Marie up a little bit."

Hiei looked away as she called him cute, trying not to seem too pleased. After all, she was commenting on the dog, not the man, and it would do him no good to get a swelled head over her compliments.

Still, he liked it, just a little.

"I need you to be on your best behavior, boy," she said, kneeling in front of him to scratch behind his ears. Hiei sat up and pawed at her shoulder, and then when she leaned down further from the force of his attentions he nuzzled her hair with his nose. Mackenzie put her hand to her hair and gasped. "Dear God I need to brush my hair—thanks, boy!" She got up and vanished out the door, and when she came back she had a brush in her hand and was attacking her tangled blonde mass of hair. Once finished, she exchanged the brush for the papers on her desk and patted her thigh. Hiei jumped up and went to her. "Marie is only a few blocks away so we need to go downstairs and wait," she said, and they took the stairs two at a time into the living room.

Hiei trotted over to the couch and leaped into it, settling down amongst the cushions like another silky pillow. Mackenzie plopped down next to him and arranged the papers on the table, straightening them and restraightening them every few seconds.

Calm down, woman, Hiei wanted to tell her. I've never seen you this jumpy before.

The doorbell rang. Mackenzie gave a small squeak of surprise before her face drained of what little color it possessed and she ran for the door. The sound of said door opening with a creak and Mackenzie's cry of "Hi, Marie!" floated over the air.

"Well, let me see the pages," answered a crass voice. "Don't beat around the bush. Where are they and where is this dog of yours?"

Footsteps clanged over wooden floorboards. "He's not mine," Mackenzie protested as the two of them entered the living room.

"Yeah, right," Marie snorted with a toss of her black ringlets. A mountain of hair cascaded to her elbows, and her large, dark eyes gleamed out a tanned face covered with a perfect coating of precisely applied makeup. She was a tall women who smelt very strongly of perfume and powders that set Hiei's nose to twitching, dressed in a blue suit that suited her willowy body type perfectly. Every inch the business woman, it surprised Hiei that she so willingly came to him and offered a hand for him to sniff. Once she passed inspection, Hiei allowed her to caress his ears.

"Great lookin' dog," Marie said as she raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. "You draw him for the pages?"

"Um, yes," Mackenzie said, fidgeting. She pointed. "They're on the coffee table."

Marie skimmed them off the glass object with French-manicured nails. "Hmph," she said as she flipped through them, and without a word she sat down in an armchair next to the couch. Mackenzie hovered for a few seconds before sitting next to Hiei, and he allowed her to stroke his head as they waited in perfect silence. He knew on some primal level that his mere presence was a huge comfort to his nervous friend, and he even went as far to lick her hand, once, when her fingers began to shake. The moments stretched into minutes, and when it seemed as if Mackenzie couldn't take any more Marie threw the papers down onto the coffee table.

"These are the best pages you've produced since Shiro died," Marie said.

Hiei's ears perked up at this piece of information.

"But the ending's missing," the woman continued. "Have you just not laid it down or what?"

"I haven't quite figured it out yet," Mackenzie said. "The book should be about fifteen pages of text and twenty illustrations. I'm only missing the ending illustrations and the last bits of story."

Marie stood up. "Well, the publisher will be happy with these until you get the ending done. The kids really loved Shiro's adventures; I willing to bet they'll love this, too."

Mackenzie's smile lit up the room, but the expression was undercut with sadness. "I'm trying to get over Shiro," she said slowly, and the smile retreated into a contemplative look. "It's hard; he was my best friend. But this little guy," she laid a hand on Hiei's head, "has been a very good friend over the past few days." She patted Hiei's head and gave him a small hug. "I feel like I can create again. Like the world got a little brighter."

Hiei brimmed with pride when he heard this, and he nuzzled Mackenzie's hand.

"I'll be sure to thank his owners when I find them," she continued, and Hiei's bubbled burst. "They'll never know how much his presence here helped me get out of the rut I was stuck in."

"Maybe he doesn't have an owner," Marie suggested. "Surely they would have called or put up signs of their own by now."

Mackenzie bit her lip. "Maybe you're right," she said, and she only had eyes for Hiei in that moment. "Maybe I _can_ keep him, after all."

Guilt made Hiei's head fall, because he knew that all of his plans of escape and dreams of getting his old body back would kill her. How had he been so naive? He knew it without any room for doubt in that moment, seeing her eyes shine the way they did when she looked at him. He had been so keen on leaving in the previous days, but now...

He would have to leave her eventually. That was certain. He just didn't know how he would feel about that when the time actually came.

* * *

_AUTHOR's NOTE:_

_I am SO SORRY for the delay in updates! Things have been cray over here. Still, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Very soon we'll get to the meat of the story. This fic, by the way, will not be very long—fifteen chapters or so by my reckoning, and definitely no more than twenty, tops. Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers for sticking with my craziness!_


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